Les Dennis, the celebrity who bounced back

Apr 7 2008 by Hannah Stephenson, Liverpool Daily Post

"It gave me the chance to laugh at myself, whereas people thought I didn’t have a sense of humour about myself because there were so many photos of me looking grumpy when my marriage to Amanda was in trouble."

He is quick to tell me all the projects he has had since Extras. Later this year, he’ll be starring in Eurobeat – Almost Eurovision, a spoof of everything Eurovision, which will be touring the regions.

Today he is here to discuss his autobiography, Must The Show Go On?, which details his life from his working class roots in Liverpool to his days on the northern club circuit, his break into television with New Faces and comedy partnership with Dustin Gee.

Tabloids will feast upon the chapters involving Holden’s affair with Morrissey and the collapse of their marriage – and Dennis is slightly worried when I suggest that he has painted Holden as the villain of the piece.

Indeed, he writes about his devastation at seeing the tabloid photos of Holden and Morrissey on a romantic country walk and returning to the cottage they had rented for the weekend. Yet, when she rang up in tears about the reports, he went to comfort her near the film set where she was working.

She then proceeded to tell him the sordid details "as if she was having coffee with one of her girlfriends" and even admitted to buying new underwear for the weekend, he says.

When Dennis arrived back in London, he was relentlessly pursued by the press, but retained a dignified silence. That’s devotion for you. When the affair ended and Holden returned to try to patch up their marriage, the cracks soon started to appear.

But Dennis says he was to blame as well.

"Amanda had run into Neil’s arms because something was clearly missing from her relationship with me. I wasn’t giving her something she needed. When she talked about it, she said that Neil was a free spirit who took risks in life and who lived very much for the day.

"I have a tendency to bomb my own ship and can be gloomy and negative."

Does he think Holden will be upset about the book?

"I really haven’t got a clue," he says simply. "I do care because I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want to take my share of the blame. It was a two-way street."

He doesn’t keep in touch with the actress, who has since had a baby with record producer Chris Hughes.

"I don’t think it would be healthy for us to keep in touch. We didn’t have any children together, so there was no need to. I wish her well with her life."

But he says now that it was divine retribution that she treated him as she did, a punishment perhaps for how he treated his first wife.

"When I had first achieved my success, in the 1980s, I had treated Lynne appallingly and had felt invincible. I could see parallels in what was happening to Amanda."

Ironically, there is also a 17-year age gap between Dennis and Claire, but it doesn’t worry him.

"I met Claire at 35, whereas I met Amanda when she was 22 when she was still a young girl rather than a woman.

"I’m in an age difference relationship now, but it doesn’t seem like an issue."

He hopes they will marry next year, although he says there is no set date.

As for his career, he admits that he still harbours an insecurity that his celebrity may fade to nothing.

"If I walk down the street and I hear someone say, ‘There’s that bloke, what’s his name?’ I go, ‘Oh no, they know my face but they are forgetting the name, or they think I’m Keith Chegwin or Bobby Davro’.

"I’d better do something to keep that momentum going."

* MUST The Show Go On?, by Les Dennis, is published by Orion. Priced £18.99.